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B-POV
It was difficult not to feel out of place loitering in front of a freshman dormitory I did not live in. Every time a group left the building, I received a long, pitied look for being the loser all alone on a Friday night. I'm not all alone, I couldn't explain to any of the onlookers, I'm meeting with friends! I braved the discomfort for a full twenty minutes before two faces I recognized emerged from the locked double doors and hurried towards me.
"I think it's going to rain!" Jessica fretted, already under an umbrella despite the dry sky.
I glanced up at the clouds. Light and wispy "It's not."
"You never know, Bella."
"Jessica's worried about her hair," Angela explained. "I don't know why." She plucked a wayward curl between her fingers and tucked it back into place on Jessica's behalf. "It always looks so pretty."
Angela was Jessica's roommate. Not only that, but she and Jessica shared almost all the same classes. They were both elementary education majors with minors in photography. She attended the second lunch with the girls and was the only one to attend all the meals that followed. I liked Angela, though she spoke less than I did. She took the phrase, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all to heart, only ever speaking to contribute a positive affirmation or a compliment to the conversation.
"That's because you've never seen it wet," Jessica said. "Believe me, I look like a drowned poodle."
"Shall we go?" The three of us planned to go to the Honor's Society Mixer that evening. Charlie was thrilled at the idea of me attending my first college party. I didn't have the heart to explain to him that something hosted by the school wasn't going to have the drama that he envisioned.
"One sec," Jessica checked her phone, "Did Lauren say she was coming?" she asked Angela.
Lauren was Jessica and Angela's third roommate. She had come to half of the lunches this week, and I secretly hoped she would cut her attendance in half again. She was one of those people who decided brutal honestly was a quirky personality trait she couldn't avoid. She teased Jessica for her thick curls and Angela for her glasses, but I was on the brunt end of her snark much more often than they were.
"No," Angela answered, also scrolling through her phone to check her messages, "she said she had better things to do."
I tried my best to maintain a neutral expression. I wasn't sure what the group consensus was on Lauren, but I didn't want to stir the pot between roommates if they were simmering together just fine.
"Okay, so let's go."
The mixer was held in one of the many student centers around campus. On the walk over, Jessica launched into a minute-by-minute playback of her day while Angela and I trotted along either side. We arrived too early; a few things were still being set up. We eyed the snack table neatly lined with individual bags of chips, cookies, and juice boxes, and decided against it. Jessica informed me that they had better snacks in their room if we felt hungry later in the night.
As the hour slowly ticked by, the room filled up. I recognized a few people from my classes, but no one recognized me. Jessica and Angela waved to people that lived on their hall. Small parties of two or three would join ours, have a brief chat with Jessica, and move right along to the next group. We made a few rounds, like that. In between conversations, Jessica regaled Angela and me with stories from her hometown.
Halfway through a story about a new girl that stole her boyfriend, something caught Jessica's attention. She stopped, stomped, and stared. "There he is, ladies. The biggest tragedy on campus."
Angela and I turned, curious as to who would have earned that title from Jessica. I craned my neck, but couldn't see past Edward sitting alone at a bar-height table. Surely, she wasn't referring to Edward.
Jessica sighed dramatically. "The sexiest guy in the world. The personality of an old sock."
"Edward?" I asked, trying to figure out how the personality of an old sock could be twisted into a compliment.
"Yeah," she quirked her head, making her curls bounce, "Did you try to talk to him too?"
I nodded. "We were paired up for an assignment."
"Let me guess. He sat there with his chin on his fist, supplying one-word answers, and never looked you in the eye, once."
"Edward?" I confirmed, wondering if he had an identical twin brother Jessica mistook him for.
Jessica nodded absolutely.
"No. That's not what happened at all. Edward was charming. And sweet. And…" The list could go on, but I stopped myself before I could look like a fool in front of my new friends. "He seemed like a very nice guy."
"Seriously?" My response upset Jessica for some reason. "On Thursday, I sat outside in the cold and pretended to talk on the phone. Just so I could walk into the building right behind him and make sure we would be lab partners that day. And that was all I got."
She gestured towards Edward, still all by himself, staring down at his hands folded on the table.
It hurt my heart to see him all along like that. Someone should be with him. The room could use his bright smile and the ringing bells of his laughter.
"I talked to him on Tuesday." On Thursday, he still chose to sit beside me without being forced due to tardiness. Our attendance assignment had been independent, and the professor filled up the time allotted with her lecture, so we didn't have time to talk outside of the basic pleasantries.
Angela patted Jessica's shoulder reassuringly, "See? You probably caught him on a bad day."
"I hoped so," Jessica pouted.
I wanted to say he still took the time to acknowledge and say hello to me on Thursday, but it was a petty, unnecessary comment. I needed to squash any jealous sprouts before they could blossom and ruin my newfound friendship. After all, it didn't matter whether or not Jessica wanted Edward. He wasn't mine, and no world existed where he would be.
Jessica and Angela switched subjects to the boys that lived on their hall. While they compared the cuteness over several I peeked at Edward once more out of the corner of my eyes. I could approach him myself. Or bring my group and give Jessica a pleasant introduction. Anything to keep him from looking so entirely miserable.
Instead, I followed my friends as they made another round of the party.
At some point, the dingy snack table had been updated with treats from a local bakery. Where the sad snack packs of chips once were, now sat glistening donuts, thick cookies, and luscious cupcakes.
"Now those look incredible," Jessica noted, already moving towards the table.
"Want anything?" Angela asked, before she, too, approached the table. I shook my head. "Suit yourself."
I lingered in the doorway, waiting for my friends to pick out their treats. When they returned, Jessica handed me a donut stuffed with what looked like a cookies-and-cream filling. "Just in case. That was the last one."
Before I could thank her, a random guy shoved past me, causing me to drop the donut.
"Move it, fatass," he grunted under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
"Hey!" Jessica shouted after the boy. "You're the fat-ass, you big, dumb, fatty!" Her words echoed into the room, heard by no one. She smiled at me, obviously pleased with herself for standing up to him.
Angela patted me on the arm, "Don't listen to him, Bella. You're not fat."
I smiled at my friends. I appreciated them for what they did, but they missed the point entirely.
I was fat.
I wasn't a chubby side of a size six or curvy. I had a round bottom, large breasts, and the stomach that often went with both of those things.
It wasn't like I was unhealthy, either. I ate better than my father, who was able to stay slim even as he reached his older years. I ate my daily servings of fruits and veggies and didn't gorge on French fries. Sure, I was unwilling to give up cupcakes and pasta, but why should I have to? So, people wouldn't brush me aside or call me rude names? I shouldn't have to give up food to deserve my own dignity.
The entire interaction affected me more than I would have liked it to. My dignity had been squashed, just like the donut on the ground. Even after we cleaned up the donut and resumed our rounds, I felt dirty and empty. My cookies-n-cream filling was still smeared on the floor somewhere.
Eventually, I faded from the conversation entirely. Jessica and Angela trotted ahead of me while I slunk behind them, like a clingy house pet. When they struck up a conversation with two boys from their hall, I lingered to the side, not in the mood to introduce myself.
My eyes drifted over the crowd. Students chatted happily in small clusters. A large group circled up to begin a game of some kind. Couples lounged together on the couches and squeezed together on the armchairs. My eyes landed on Edward, sitting at the same bar height table he was before. Still sullen. Still all alone.
I interrupted Angela's conversation briefly to whisper in her ear that I would be right back. She asked if I was alright, and I said assured her everything was fine. Jessica was too busy twirling her hair and batting her eyelashes to notice my departure. A part of me was relieved.
I barely made it through the crowd when a pretty, blonde girl caught Edward's attention. My heart sank deep into the pit of my stomach. I couldn't even be upset. That was the sort of girl who deserved attention from someone like Edward. Not me.
With no desire to return to my friends, I swept out the back door. Away from crowds and flirting and Edward Masen.
E-POV
"I think being goth this time around was the perfect choice." Alice declared.
"You look ridiculous."
Alice shot me a look from the bar height table she and Jasper occupied across the room. Carlisle requested we attend the Honors Society Mixer to study the mannerisms of current college-aged students. It had been twenty years since any of us had pretended to be this young, though we were technically the same age as our current peers and not our previous colleagues.
All five of us sat in our respective corners, watching how the students interacted. We never wanted to seem too hipster, or too old-fashioned. Apparently, Alice decided she was above being inconspicuous. Her black clothes were striking, as well as the graphic black make-up against her unnaturally pale skin. Jasper matched, whether he wanted to or not. Though his black clothes were nothing more than a t-shirt and jeans.
Even as I hid my mouth behind my hand and muttered under my breath, all my siblings could hear me. "You could not look more like a vampire. I give us a month before enough rumors force us to leave."
"No, see. That's what makes it the perfect choice. No one would expect a vampire to dress like this. It's too obvious."
"Hidden in plain sight," Rosalie agreed from Emmett's lap. The couple was curled up on a ratty armchair in one of the many vignettes sprinkled around the room.
"She's right, Eddie," Emmett added, "Remember that time in Miami I told people we were Immortal Demigods? We got to walk around shirtless and sparkly, and everyone thought it was some elaborate joke."
I frowned. It was true. People assumed the effects of our vampirism were body glitter. Because of Emmett's lies and swagger, he and I were allowed to attend a music festival on the sunny beach, unbothered.
Defeated, I retreated into my own corner.
As the crowd grew, my siblings engaged in conversations with students, picking up common vernacular that we would discuss and share back at the house. From my corner, I watched their body language. Most people took out cell phones and stared at them at every lull in conversation, which was new and of note. Sometimes they would scroll through their phones in the middle of speaking with someone. Sometimes, the entire conversation was centered around scrolling through one phone, together. I would never become popular enough to need social media to keep up appearances, but my siblings might. I wondered how that would work, and how often we would have to scrub our accounts.
"Eddie!" Emmett's voice cut through my internal musings. I checked to see if he was speaking out loud or in his mind. It was tough to tell the difference in the dense crowd. His mouth was closed, but his voice continued, "The girl from Spanish heading your way."
I straightened in my seat and scanned the room. Surely enough, the blonde girl from our Spanish class wove through the crowd to get to me, trying to seem coy. I felt Emmett's hopefulness as I recalled the conversation we had on our first day. I would love nothing more than to turn my head and pretend I didn't see her, but Emmett wanted me to try. Perhaps it was my pleasant conversation with Bella making me overconfident, I chose to follow my brother's advice. I made eye contact with the girl and smiled.
She had dressed up for the mixer. Her hair was down, her face made up and she wore a tight, little dress under her flannel similar to the tight little dresses worn by the girls around her. I was sure Rosalie had clocked this trend, but filed it away for later on her behalf, just in case.
"Edward, right?" she pointed at me like running into me was a coincidence and not part of her very deliberate plan. In fact, a group of her friends was off to the side watching the entire interaction, so they could analyze my behavior in detail. I tried to ignore them, but it was difficult with all six of them thinking my name and studying my face.
"Hello," I greeted.
She placed her hand on her chest and introduced herself again. "My name is Audrey."
"Yes, I remember," I lied. "Lovely name. Like Hepburn."
She grinned. Off to the side, her friend internally congratulated her for bringing my attention down to her cleavage. Hearing that thought, I pointedly brought my attention back up to her eyes. Between that and the group of boys passing by with the same song stuck in their heads at different intervals, I missed something Audrey had said. I assumed that she thanked me for complimenting her name.
"You're welcome." I smiled.
The look she gave me told me that wasn't the answer she had been expecting. I looked in her mind to see what she had said, but she was already thinking about how conceited I was.
In a poor attempt to salvage my name, I pulled out a detail about her from her class introduction, "You're in the marching band, right?"
It seemed to help. Her smile was back, but she remained skeptical. "Yes. I play the flute."
"I do, too. The flute among others." Almost every instrument, but Audrey didn't need to know that.
Her mind twittered with excitement. One of her friends mistook my half smile for a flirtatious one. I pulled up the other corner of my mouth into a full smile, hoping that one conveyed the correct message. While I was adjusting my facial expression, Audrey had said something. I checked her mind only to see myself serenading her with a guitar in front of a fireplace. Again, naked and on my knees.
Managing to not roll my eyes, I answered the question she must have asked, "I play the guitar, too."
Somehow, it was the wrong thing to say. Her polished eyebrows pinched together. "What did you say?"
I had no idea what I had done wrong. There were no other words in her mind besides jerk. "I don't know."
She stood motionless for a moment, wondering how much she was willing to put up with for good looks. I had to keep my face light and casual, as if I couldn't hear her comparing my every mistake against my physical appearance. In the end, she decided I wasn't worth the effort. "I should probably get back to my friends."
Before I had the chance to say goodbye, she stepped away, hoping to get as much distance between herself and me as possible.
"Dude," Emmett chuckled, shaking his head. Jasper was also fighting a smile in his dark corner. It was bad enough that I had embarrassed myself, but I had also done so in front of my siblings.
"You know I'm not good at that type of thing," I hissed at my siblings.
"You mean talking?" Rosalie clarified, her tone insulting.
It was rude but true.
"What did I do?"
"I wasn't paying attention," Alice chirped, innocently. A white lie.
"I was," Rosalie would never spare my feelings. In fact, most of the time she went out of the way to make sure my feelings were never spared. "She said she was named after Audrey Hepburn, to which you said, you're welcome."
I grimaced. Rosalie grinned.
"Then, after you almost saved the conversation, she told you she auditioned for her first flute solo that afternoon. You responded, I play the guitar, too."
She must have only thought about me playing the guitar. I had to hand it to her, Audrey was very good at multitasking.
"And so, sweet, innocent Audrey is telling her friends how you are the most conceited asshole she's ever met in her life."
"Thank you, Rose."
Rosalie lived for these moments—my failures. She was practically glowing. "You are so welcome."
With no intention to humiliate myself further, I trudged out the back door. Ignoring the silent protests from Alice and Emmett, I walked far enough until I could no longer hear their voices, then until I could no longer hear any sounds from the party.
I looked wistfully out at the mountain range that cradled the campus. Far out in the densely packed forests would be the only place I could find silence. Solitude. What Esme would call loneliness.
As much as I wanted to escape into those woods, Esme would be devastated if I didn't return home with my siblings. Alice and Emmett were always meddling in my affairs, but I knew Esme was the puppet master pulling their strings. My mother had my favorite siblings watch me like a hawk, pressuring happiness onto me as if it were a drug. So, I needed to remain on campus until I could drive home with my siblings and plaster a smile on my face for my mother's sake.
I collapsed on the bench behind me, careful to hold back so as to not break the flimsy thing. A gasp sounded beside me, startling me. I slid away from the person I just terrified and turned to apologize. Just like the first time I saw her, I was struck by her beauty. Large lips, slightly parted in surprise from my seemingly sudden appearance. Round cheekbones, rosy with a natural blush. Warm, brown eyes so large they gave away all the secrets hidden in her silent mind.
"Bella? I'm sorry, I didn't see you there."
"Hi, Edward," she greeted, shyly. "It's okay."
"How are you?"
She looked down at her hands, twisting and untwisting on her lap. "I'm fine. How are you?"
"Better," I said, honestly. Better than I had been in a few days. Since the last time I got to talk to her.
"I saw you at the mixer."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I thought to say hi, but you looked… busy."
"I wish you had," It would have been a blessing to have been interrupted by Bella. She might have saved me from making an ass out of myself in front of my siblings. "What are you doing out here?"
"Killing time. If I get home before ten, my dad will get concerned and ask questions."
I chuckled.
Indignation pinched between Bella's eyebrows. I explained myself, "I'm sorry. I'm only laughing because I'm out here for the very same reason. I would love to leave, but if I returned home before my siblings, it would disappoint my mother."
Bella laughed, too. "Wow. Both faking attendance to a school function so our parents think we're social."
"You'll have to add that to the list."
Bella quirked her head.
"The ever-growing list of our similarities."
Bella nodded and giggled. Then, pulled out her English notebook from her bag and wrote the phrase on the first page, under commute from Forks, competitive, and antiquing. I appreciated Bella's dedication to the joke. When she finished, she kept the notebook on her lap, doodling on the margins.
"If you want, I can give you back your bench," I offered.
"No, no. I like you here."
That made me smile. I like it here beside Bella, as well.
"How many siblings do you have?" She asked, to keep the conversation going.
"A brother and a sister. They're both married, so it bumps their numbers up to four."
"Are you the oldest or the youngest?"
"Both." She raised an eyebrow at my odd response. "We were all adopted. I was the first to be adopted, but I am the youngest in age."
"Oldest in the family, but youngest of the family."
"Exactly."
"Must have been weird."
"It's honestly more degrading than weird. Nothing puts you in your place faster than trying to dole out advice only to walk away with your shoelaces tied together and gum in your hair."
Neither of those things ever happened. Vampire siblings were more creative and far more destructive. We ripped off each other's limbs, threw each other through buildings, bought ridiculous stock in each other's names. Of course, I couldn't tell Bella any of that. Nonetheless, she laughed.
"What about you? Siblings?"
"Nope. Just me and my dad."
"That sounds nice," I mused, thinking of all the nights decades ago when Carlisle was at work at the hospital and it was just Esme and me.
"It is," she mused. "He's my best friend."
Smiling at memories I could not see, she looked so lovely. Her eyes sparkled like the stars in the sky. I searched for a polite, casual way to express that. To explain to her that here with moonlight-soaked hair and a serene smile, she was more beautiful than Artemis herself.
B-POV
He looked so beautiful. So beautiful, I couldn't bear to look directly at him. I kept my gaze down on the notebook on my lap as I doodled. Careful, not to draw the gaze of the piercing, golden eyes I felt in every cell of my body.
We sat in silence for a moment, listening to the quiet sounds of the night. The constant buzz of crickets from the neatly trimmed landscaping. The whir of cars from the highway on the other side of the building.
"Why did you write that down?" he asked, seemingly out of the blue.
I traced my finger under the string of words I had just added to the page. "I—I'm sorry. It was for the joke."
"No, not that. Dazzled."
"You read that?"
He chuckled lightly at my scandalized tone. "It was my assignment, too. Why did you write it?"
I bit my lip. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. One I put zero thought into. I supposed I had been thinking of Edward in his anecdote, dazzled by the stars. It stood out to me, because perfectly captured how I felt in that classroom. By Edward.
The magnetic pull of his mere presence was like nothing I had ever experienced. I had crushes on boys before. I had loved my high school boyfriend before we started dating. But Edward was something else. He was more like the stars than any other boy.
Beautiful. Unattainable. Ethereal.
In that classroom, I knew would have fallen down a waterfall. For I was dazzled by Edward.
"I couldn't get the image of you falling down a waterfall out of my head," I lied.
"That's a pity," he drummed his knees with his fingertips. "It was the one thing I said that wasn't true."
"You lied," I gasped, feigning horror.
He smiled, seeing through my poor acting skills right away. "It was a story I borrowed from my brother."
My eyebrows pinched together. Why would he need to tell a borrowed tale? "Why?
"Honestly, I don't know." I peeked up from my page to see his golden gaze far away. I would have assumed he was dazzled by the stars if the light pollution from the city hadn't hidden them. "First day jitters, I suppose. A sad attempt to seem more interesting than I am."
"More interesting? You speak Latin and you're good at darts."
My sarcasm had the desired effect. Edward doubled over in laughter. Still chuckling, he leaned back, and rested his cheek on his arm draped over the back of the bench. His golden eyes met mine, intense despite the laugh that still played on his lips. I didn't understand how Jessica could compare Edward to an old sock. Her story must have been an exaggeration. He wasn't anything like the stoic brood she described. He was light. He was kind. He laughed easily, like he was thrilled with each opportunity to do so.
"Why did you write that?" he asked again.
"I told you…"
"No, I understand why you chose that anecdote. I want to know why you would write that about yourself."
Without telling myself to do so, I leaned closer to him. So close, my back touched his hand resting on the back of the bench. He didn't move away. Neither did I. He let me get close enough that I could smell him. Sweet and warm and homey, like butterscotch.
The scent warmed me like a cup of coffee. With warm, melty insides, I would tell him everything he wanted to know. Dazzled. Yet again, I was dazzled. I opened my mouth to tell him as much. That in his presence, there was no other way I could describe myself.
Then, reality hit. He would be appalled if I told him that. I wasn't hot coffee or sweet butterscotch. I was a donut squashed on the floor.
I sat up straight, away from the touch and gaze and smell that turned off every sensible part of my brain. "I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
I gave him a lame answer. "We're strangers."
"I know your favorite color is brown. I know you live with your dad. I know your Christmas cards have already been written."
"A stranger could also know those things."
"How?"
"They could be a stalker."
He laughed. The sound wasn't as full as it usually was. Breathy, a bit uncomfortable.
"Am I not your friend?"
The sweetness in his voice constricted my heart, coaxing me to look at him again. I fixed my gaze on the center of his forehead, avoiding his eyes. I figured looking at his lips would be just as dangerous as his eyes—if not more—and I needed to keep my head straight. "Do you think we're friends?"
"Well, friend has many definitions. First, one that is not hostile. Would you say I am hostile towards you?"
Other than the fact that his mere presence was an assault on all my senses, including common sense? "No."
"That's one tick in the box of friendship. Next, one that is in the same nation, party, or group. We're both in America." He jutted his thumb in the direction of the Honor's Society Mixer, "We came from the same party."
I smiled, just a little. "What group are we both in?"
"We're students at Washington State University."
"A second tick."
"Thank you." He nodded his head in gratitude, "Third, one attached to each other by affection or esteem."
I didn't want to know how or why he had the dictionary definition of friend ready to recall at a second's notice. I was absolutely attached to Edward by affection. In fact, I would be happier if I was attached to him in every, single way. Before I could come up with a way to joke or tease or lighten the subject in any way, he visibly flinched.
"Edward?" I started to ask, but he was already standing up.
He brushed off the front of his pants. "I need to get going."
I had no idea where the sudden urgency had come from. I looked around and saw no approaching figure, heard no one shouting his name. Edward hadn't pulled out a phone or wore a watch to check the time. Bewildered, I tried and failed to mask my shock and disappointment. "Oh."
He offered me a charming half-smile as his condolence. It had my heart racing just as fast as a full smile. "I'll see you on Tuesday. Have a good night."
"I'll save you a seat," I responded weakly. And far too late. He was halfway across the quad by the time I thought to speak. I watched him retreat into the darkness. Just as he passed the building where the party was being held, four figures met up with him.
His siblings, I presumed.
From this distance, I could only see their silhouettes. The tiniest of the group held hands with the tallest—both lithe and lean. A stocky bulldozer of a man held a girl with a bold, hourglass figure. Edward trotted towards them, right in the middle. Not the tallest, nor the leanest, nor the most muscular. Perfectly average.
I assumed he was the most beautiful.
I couldn't imagine anyone besting him on that front.
